UNH Today

Sculptor and ceramicist David Katz exploits the properties of wet clay to create complex web-like installations that push and pull against architectural elements, constructed spaces, and scaffolding. As the clay dries, cracks develop, exposing the fragile nature of the structural systems.

Katz states, “Flextime, will focus on time, impermanence, and loss as the central themes of exploration. Materials used will include unfired clay and wooden chairs. The chairs will be old and worn by use and the forgotten histories of previous owners. Found chairs will serve as metaphoric representation of figures, the complexities of relationships, the fleeting nature of memories, and the inevitability of loss. The fragility and temporality of the clay in concert with these old weathered and discarded relics of lives past will emphasize these ideas while rooting the work in the primal notions of earth and an environment in flux.”

Additional programs for Flextime include: The Second Eye,Dancer Junichi Fukuda’s improvisational response to Flextime, Wednesday, October 18, 6 p.m., 3S Artspace, 319 Vaughan St., Portsmouth, NH. This performance has a suggested donation $5/$10. A lecture with Katz with take place on Wednesday November 1, 12:10p.m.– 1 p.m., at UNH, Paul Creative Art Center, room A218. This lecture is free and open to the public.

Flextime was organized by the University of New Hampshire and curated by Kristina Durocher, director, Museum of Art, and supported by the UNH Arts Initiative. The UNH Arts Initiative is a donor-funded project that supports UNH arts programming in New Hampshire, taking the great art created in Durham to all corners of the State. Additional support was provided by the New Hampshire State Council on the Arts Public Value Partnership grant, UNH students, and by 3S Artspace staff.

About the Artist:

David Katz is a sculptor and installation artist who working primarily with ceramics and unfired clay and currently living in Providence, RI. David received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the University of Wisconsin in 2005 followed by a Masters of Fine Arts in ceramics from Indiana University in 2012. David currently teaches Ceramics at Rhode Island School of Design in Providence, RI where he has worked since 2014 as a Visiting Critic, Assistant Professor, and Interim Department Head. Before working at RISD David was the Ceramics Technician and faculty member at Bennington College in Bennington, VT. David has completed residencies at Greenwich House Pottery in New York City (2006-2008), Guldagergaard – International Ceramics Research Center in Denmark(2011), Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts in Gatlinburg, TN(2012-2013), and Watershed Center for Ceramics in Newcastle, ME(2014). David’s work has been widely exhibited throughout the United States, Europe and Asia in both group and solo exhibitions in addition to numerous commercial acquisitions.

The Museum of Art hours of operation during the academic year: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday 10 am-4 pm; Thursday, 10 am -8 pm; and Saturday and Sunday, 1-5 pm; closed University holidays. Museum will be closed November 22-26, 2017. All programs are free and open to the public. Follow the Museum of Art on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram #MOAUNH.

Image credit: Surrender, David Katz